Welcome, Mary of the woods.

Regular readers of this blog might recall the mention of a girl called Mary, who crops up in the occasional post here and there. Her first appearance is in this old post from last year: http://jump-into-the-void.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-saw-osprey-just-other-day.html

Mary has just finished a 6 month stint living in a yurt and cooking in the woods for students of greenwood working. As I might have previously mentioned, I occasionally help her, or whoever happens to be cooking in the woods.

Mary has left the woods for the streets of Southampton. Yes, a very stark difference there. For the next three years she will be studying for a degree in Environmental Sciences. She is wary about this, as she knows this is time spent away from learning crafty country things. But she will be learning in depth, important and interesting things that will go on to help her understand more about the world that surrounds us and our place and duty within it. While she studies into these things, I will continue to make jam, spin wool, weave baskets, sew quilts and knit ponchos. Plus all the other literary stuff I am working on. We will share our thoughts and what we have learnt and experienced here. Together we will learn the best of both worlds and stay in contact while she lives in the city and I live in the country.

Mary and I are both interested in things of a spiritual nature. She was in regular attendance of a weekly meditation group before leaving for Uni. I was not because I am stubborn. But we share many of the same ideas, and perhaps we will continue to discuss these things via this blog.

Mary likes to read weird self-help books recommended to her by her weird older brother. I hope she will continue to tell me about them, because in general they are hilarious or insightful or a bit of the both. I will endeavour to occasionally review any particularly good or particularly bad fiction or non-fiction I come across. In many ways this blog will not be changing much, but I hope it will change a little for the better.

There is no guarantee we will both update very often, and maybe not at all. Mary will be very busy, and I am working very hard on the aforementioned novel http://jump-into-the-void.blogspot.com/2010/09/linc.html But if we manage to post anything, it’ll be good. So keep your specs peeled for interesting, insightful and immature dual blog posts.